Television systems for radioactive waste management

Conference · Wed Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1989 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States)

OSTI ID:5382126

Quartly, J R ^[1]

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1. Rees Instruments Ltd., Surrey (England)

Radiation-tolerant television cameras, widely used for the inspection of nuclear plants, are now used for monitoring radioactive waste management processes. Two systems are described in this paper that differ in the methods of maintaining the camera equipment. At the British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL) Sellafield plant, a major capital investment program is under way that includes plants for spent-fuel reprocessing and radioactive waste management. The Windscale vitrification plant (WVP) will convert highly active liquid waste to a solid glass-like form. The WVP television system was based on in-cell cameras designed to be removable by remote-handling equipment. The plant to encapsulate medium active solid waste, encapsulation plant 1 (EP1) used through-wall and through-roof viewing systems with a glass viewing dome as the biological shield, allowing the camera and optics to be withdrawn to a safe area for maintenance. Both systems used novel techniques to obtain a record of the waste-processing operations. The WVP system used a microcomputer to overlay reference information onto the television picture and a motion detector to automatically trigger the video recording. The television system for EP1 included automatic character recognition to generate a computer data record of drum serial numbers.

• OSTI ID: 5382126
• Report Number(s): CONF-891103--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States) Journal Volume: 60
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

050800 -- Nuclear Fuels-- Spent Fuels Reprocessing
052000* -- Nuclear Fuels-- Waste Management
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
42 ENGINEERING
420203 -- Engineering-- Handling Equipment & Procedures
CAMERAS
COMPUTERS
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
ENCAPSULATION
ENERGY SOURCES
EQUIPMENT
FUEL REPROCESSING PLANTS
FUELS
INSPECTION
MAINTENANCE
MANAGEMENT
MATERIALS
MICROELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
MICROPROCESSORS
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
NUCLEAR FUELS
PHYSICAL RADIATION EFFECTS
RADIATION EFFECTS
RADIOACTIVE WASTE FACILITIES
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
REACTOR MATERIALS
REMOTE VIEWING EQUIPMENT
REPROCESSING
SELLAFIELD REPROCESSING PLANT
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SPENT FUELS
SURVEILLANCE
TELEVISION CAMERAS
VITRIFICATION
WASTE MANAGEMENT